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An brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own division was torn down, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents started commemorating their past. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the locals drinking in the very same tavern, visiting the identical church and sending their children to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the entire hamlet, setting up their command in a house on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as limitations increased they were obliged to present identification, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still view each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were prohibited. One woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a western villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I was told stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how much barrier they desired to preserve. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where one of their own managed to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was significantly fortified.

Preserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are preserved in addition to a set of tableaux illustrating the most impactful events in the village’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed special permission to look after their produce; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but not the pair, in case they sought to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The border between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but over double the number individuals (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They did not backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Roughly 15k visited each year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and big car park – is likely to